Providers of network-based commerce systems typically request potential sellers of goods and services to provide detailed information regarding the items they wish to offer for sale over the network. However, if the process of providing that information becomes unduly burdensome, the seller may be tempted to abort the process prior to completion, cutting off any opportunity to complete an actual sales transaction, and resulting in a loss of revenue to the system provider.
Items for sale on a network are typically associated with categories (or “categorized”) so that potential buyers can select them quickly from among many choices. The technical challenge lies in efficiently categorizing numerous items offered for sale with a minimum of seller-provided information. If, as is typically the case, the seller is required to negotiate a lengthy listing of categories and sub-categories in an attempt to manually locate those that are most appropriate for a particular item, the process of doing so may be prematurely terminated by the frustrated seller. Thus, there is a need for improved systems and methods that minimize the amount of seller interaction required to determine appropriate categories to associate with items offered for sale in a network-based commerce system.